


still sane.

by labirinthyne



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: a lot of it, canon stretching, ignore the timeline who knows if it's correct i don't
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 17:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11040651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labirinthyne/pseuds/labirinthyne
Summary: “Aaron, Aaron!” Amber drops the lipstick she was about to put on in the sink and flies down the stairs. “Mom?” She pushes open the door. The glass from earlier is broken on the floor. “Mom, what’s wrong?” Her mother pulls her gaze away from the television, eyes wide. “Amber, honey, get your brother. Get Aaron.”





	still sane.

**Author's Note:**

> absolutely no energy was expended on proof reading for the making of this fic

There’s sometimes a moment, in the beginning of her day, when there is complete silence in the house. The light leaks through her curtains, the day starts, and there is just nothing. No birds chirping, or tea kettles whistling, or parents fighting, or vases crashing on linoleum, or screen doors slamming or dogs barking. And in this moment, this quiet thirty seconds of her morning, Amber feels like she can do anything. Not in a cheesy, Barbie Girl kind of way, but in a maybe I could be a doctor or a lawyer or a journalist or a teacher or something other than a waitress kind of way. Between sleep, and remembering who and where she was, she thought maybe she could go and be a politician or a scientist or a chef de cuisine. Anything that she wanted. Anyways, today wasn’t one of those days. 

She woke up to the sound of the television downstairs. She spares a glance at her phone. Five unread texts. Six in the morning. Two emails. Fuck. It’s six in the morning. Amber sits up, and groans at the loss of an hour of sleep. Kicking her legs over the edge, she just sits on the bed for a minute instead of standing up. The T.V. has been turned up now, the sound of the morning news leaking through the floorboards. It crosses her mind that she could just go back to sleep. Her mom’s meds seemed to be really working now, and maybe she was just hanging out watching T.V. in the kitchen. But maybe… There was no telling what kind of morning it was. After maybe a minute of bracing herself, and checking her messages, she pulls her curls into some semblance of a knot on the top of her head and reluctantly makes her way down the stairs. 

It wasn’t the T.V. in the kitchen. Amber palms a hand over her face. She grabs a bottle of pills from the cabinet above the sink, and fills a glass with tepid water. There were rarely days where her mother stayed holed up in her bedroom anymore, but that doesn’t mean they never happened. She would lay lethargic in her bed not watching cooking shows for days on end, going into weeks sometimes. She wouldn’t eat until she was sick, she wouldn’t move. It terrified Amber. What if she stopped moving for so long that she just stopped. What if her body just stopped going, heart stopped beating, lungs stopped breathing… But those days weren’t the worst, though. There were days when she was irate. Rambling, paranoid. Terrified and terrifying. So Amber thanks God when she opens the bedroom door without knocking, that the days where they hid the knives were few and in between.

She’s sitting up, that’s a good sign, and her gaze is fixed on the news. Some woman talking about the stock exchange that hasn’t even opened yet because it’s fucking early. Amber places the pills and water on the bedside table, and scoots into bed next to her mom. Helen doesn’t respond, just hums thoughtfully and pokes fingers through the holes in her quilt. They stay like that for a while, her mother fiddling and occasionally uttering a non-sequitur and Amber sitting next to her, making comments about the news. Every so often she tells her mother to take her medicine, and her mother shakes her head. After about a half an hour Amber stands up and puts the pills and glass into Helen’s hands and she reluctantly takes the medicine. That’s good. It usually takes far longer on days like this. Amber places a kiss to her mom’s forehead and heads upstairs to take a shower. 

Graduation is in two weeks. She still has no idea what college she’s going to, if she’s going to college. Alex was the first in their family to go to college. And look at him now, he’s a doctor. A surgeon. The thought of her brother leaves a sour taste in her mouth. He only existed in web articles and checks dropped in the mailbox now. He called when he was in med school. He visited over breaks. But the second he got that job in Seattle, it was radio silence. She was ten when he moved to Washington. They’d been out of the system and back home for a year or so, and she felt robbed of time with her brother. She would tug on Aaron’s sleeve and ask about him all the time. When was he going to visit? Did he call? What did he say? Did he say hi? 

Eventually she gave up on that. 

Eventually her skin grew thick.

By the time she gets out of the shower, she’s only got forty five minutes to until first period. Amber pulls on a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt with The Clash on it, and her brown leather jacket. (It’s not exactly her brown leather jacket, it’s her dad’s. But he left it behind, and she kept it. It was far too big, but fashionably so, and the leather was so worn that it was soft.) Today feels like a mascara kind of day, so she does her makeup in the bathroom mirror. She’s pulling on her boots when there’s a small crash and a cry from downstairs. “Aaron, Aaron!” 

Amber drops the lipstick she was about to put on in the sink and flies down the stairs. “Mom?” She pushes open the door. The glass from earlier is broken on the floor. “Mom, what’s wrong?” Her mother pulls her gaze away from the television, eyes wide. “Amber, honey, get your brother. Get Aaron.” Amber steps over the shards of broken glass and kneels beside her mom, taking her hand. “Aaron’s not here, Mom, Remember?”

Her mom shakes her head, lifting a hand away from her daughter’s grasp and points to the news. 

_Seattle Grace Mercy West Doctors Still Lost In Woods After Plane Crash._


End file.
